Ten Thousand
by Stephane Richer
Summary: He watches basketball games in the evening until his parents change the channel, and he reads basketball books that he checks out from the library, and he stands in his room and tries to dribble between his legs in front of the mirror until the downstairs neighbors come up and yell at him.


Ten Thousand

Disclaimer: Don't own.

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Miyaji Kiyoshi first hears about the ten-thousand-hour rule when he's in elementary. His mother is a behavioral scientist, is always discussing her findings with her husband and son. Ten thousand hours, she says, is what they've decided is the magic number to make you proficient in anything. There's some kind of switch that goes on once you reach ten thousand hours of doing anything, chess or baseball or writing or playing an instrument or painting. It seems absurd-if you have no sense of pitch, will 10,000 hours make you magically able to sing an aria? What about Picasso? Had he even lived 10,000 hours when he made his first museum-quality painting? Still, the prospect is intriguing. If he starts doing something seriously right now, when will he be proficient? Can he become a concert pianist? (His neighbor across the hall is always bragging to Miyaji's parents about how her daughter has been playing the piano since she was four and will be touring internationally before high school. If he practices enough, can he catch up before then? High school's a long way away.) What does he want to do well? What's a good skill to have?

Basketball. They're always telling him he should play because he's so tall, but he's never given it much thought. But why not?

His father changes the subject to politics shortly into the discussion before his mother really gets going on the topic, but Miyaji goes out and buys a basketball with his allowance the next day. His parents shrug; the lady across the hall says that kids are fickle and he'll give it up before long. He wants to swear at her, but it's not polite and he's sure he doesn't know all the good curses yet. Why does she always need to one-up them?

He watches basketball games in the evening until his parents change the channel, and he reads basketball books that he checks out from the library, and he stands in his room and tries to dribble between his legs in front of the mirror until the downstairs neighbors come up and yell at him, and he goes to the park and plays with the neighborhood kids until they kick him out because he's no good. Sometimes, he stays out past curfew just shooting, watching the ball clang off the rim and back to him, but he can't catch it yet. And every day he writes down his hours in the back of last year's composition notebook, where there are a few blank pages. The seasons change and the snow falls. He can't play outside anymore very much, but he runs sprints up and down the stairs or stays afterwards in the school gym, practicing his dribbles in the corner while the soccer club does drills.

He's excited for middle school, because he's going somewhere with a basketball team. He doesn't have nearly enough hours yet, but if he wants to be good by high school he's got to ramp up the time he spends in the courts. He's getting an hour or two a day, and five or six at most on weekends and vacations and days off. His school has games a few times a week, but every other day is a two-hour practice. Unfortunately, Miyaji doesn't get to play a lot at first. Some of these kids are like his neighbor's kid at that piano, plunking away since they were at an age where they didn't have the fine motor skills for it yet. They may have gotten their ten thousand hours already, he decides. But they don't keep going hard, finding ways to slack off in practice and making up phantom injuries so they get benched. As a result, Miyaji gets more playing time than he may actually deserve at this point. He manages to hold his own and not be nervous, casting his fears aside and remembering what the basketball books have said and what his coach has said. He overthinks it, but he doesn't make mistakes that are too costly and he tries for every ball that might go out of bounds, gets in there and drives aggressively. He gets even more playing time in his second year and his skills are increasing. The coaches compliment his work ethic and he chides some of the lazier first-years about theirs because even though they generally have fun playing basketball this team is going nowhere fast. He starts to think about high schools, where he could go to play basketball and actually compete. The coaches give him brochures from decent schools, middling places, but he decides to shoot for the stars. Why not? If he practices extra-hard (and he's been spending all of his free time on the courts, and adding a later curfew means he'll be able to practice for longer) he can be almost three-quarters of the way to ten thousand before he's a high-school first year.

So he applies to a bunch of schools, all of which at least have basketball teams (regardless of national rank) and gets into a few, including his dream school, Shutoku. It's a no-brainer; his parents are behind him and his father brags to the lady across the hall about how his little Kiyoshi is going to a competitive basketball school. His neighbor's daughter has quit playing piano because she's sick of her mother forcing her to practice and hates the kind of music she's expected to play, and has joined the chemistry club and shogi club at school, although she's serious about neither. Her mother is furious.

He doesn't expect to make the first string and doesn't, but he meets a couple of guys who are just as passionate about basketball as he is, and have goals at becoming better, and who practice with him (although he claims victory in having the most stamina) later into the night after everyone else goes to bed (although sometimes Kimura joins him). They pant and sweat and all get better, as other kids drop out because they can't deal with the regular practice regimen. They get to go to summer training camp with the first string, who really are still far superior to Miyaji. There's a guy, Ootsubo, in his year who's already a starter, and even though he plays a different position Miyaji can see where he has to get to in order to be a first-stringer. This guy has put in his ten thousand hours and more, and continues to invest in his future in basketball. And so even at training camp, when they're going hard dawn to dusk, he plays into the night by himself when everyone else is sleeping, still recording the hours in a notebook.

His muscles develop more and more, become firmer and he lifts more in the weight room and runs faster and farther, hurls the ball faster. Things start to really come together, ten thousand no longer some unattainable abstract thing in the distance and growing closer and closer. The last game of the second-string season, he wipes the floor with his opponents, passes smooth and dribbles too fast to handle. He gets a triple-double, points and assists and steals, and he realizes when he does the math that night that he's reached ten thousand finally. He's finally arrived.

So now what? His goal has been reached. Isn't that enough? But no, it's never enough because he doesn't have time to look in the rearview mirror. There are whispers of godlike players called the "Uncrowned Kings" and he's still probably not the best player on his own team yet, and perhaps won't be for some time. Ten thousand hours is only the beginning.


End file.
